GOP senators encounter traffickers, cartel members at border during nighttime Rio Grande tour

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has detailed how a Republican Senate delegation to the border, led by him, encountered human traffickers and cartel members yelling at them and taunting law enforcement -- as they saw the crisis at the border up close.

"We have been listening to and seeing cartel members, human traffickers right on the other side of the river, waving flashlights yelling and taunting Americans, taunting the Border Patrol because they know under the current policies of the Biden administration they can flood over here," Cruz said in a video.

"They're getting paid $4-5000 a person to smuggle them into the country and... when they smuggle them in, the Biden administration releases them," he said.

Republicans have been turning up the heat on the Biden administration over its handling of the surge at the border. They say that rapid reversals of Trump-era policies, such as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), and a narrowing of deportation priorities have encouraged migrants to make the often-dangerous journey north.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered more than 100,000 migrants in February and that number is expected to have risen in March. There are currently more than 5,000 migrants in CBP custody and more than 11,000 in Health and Human Services (HHS) custody, and the administration is seeking to open more facilities in a scramble to house them.